In August, the Aubia Communications Blog will focus on strategic communications, in particular content strategy. I start with this post about how to develop a content strategy for your business, followed by posts on how to create audience profiles and editorial calendars, and I end the month with a look at the differences between a marketing and strategic communications plan.

We’ve all heard content is king, and that’s true – to a point. Of course content goes a long way in establishing your authority on a topic and earning you recognition in search engines. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger fame, though, recently took this popular sentiment to task and argued that content itself is not necessarily king but more of the chariot. You see, content itself is the conduit to the value (Rowse terms this as “usefulness”) your audience perceives in your offerings. If you’re not providing value, then it doesn’t matter how much content you produce.

How can you make your content valuable? Develop a content strategy.

Why do you need a content strategy

With some research upfront, a content strategy takes the guesswork out of what you should be producing. By understanding your audience’s needs, wants and challenges, you can produce content that is specifically targeted to provide solutions to their problems.

A content strategy keeps your business top of mind with customers. You produced a great white paper that your customers needed and appreciated, but that was six months ago. Maybe you got caught up in all your new business and didn’t have time to follow up that white paper, or maybe you drained a ton of your creative energy and now you have writer’s block. A content strategy can keep you supplied with fresh ideas and on a consistent schedule so that your customers don’t forget you’re still around and offering more solutions to their never-ending challenges.

Finally, a content strategy helps you determine where the gaps are in your communications funnel. By studying your target audience, you can see where they are falling out of the funnel and what content you can produce for each stage to keep them moving along.

How do you develop a content strategy

Once you’ve decided you and your business need a content strategy, take the following steps to create yours.

1) Align your objectives

Look at your business objectives and line up content that can support those. Want to lower costs for paid media? See if you can submit a guest post for a popular blog your target audience is known to frequent (just provide a valuable subject to the readers and not just your advertising message).

2) Know your target audience and where they are

To produce valuable content, you have to know what value means to your customers, where they are searching, and what content they need at each stage of the communications funnel. By knowing this information, you can create content that’s going to help them solve their problems in the formats they prefer. As Peter Shankman says, “if you can provide help without selling anything, you will become top of mind and they (the customers) will come back to you every single time.”

(Next week I’ll show you how to create an audience profile so you can craft your content around the specific needs of your ideal customer.)

3) Create an editorial calendar

An editorial calendar tells you what content to produce, when to produce it, and where to share it. Editorial calendars are great tools for warding off writer’s block and staying current with your audience.

(In two weeks, I’ll share with you how I create my editorial calendar.)

4) Implement your strategy

Once you’ve done your research and have your content mapped out, it’s time to start sharing. Be sure you are sharing content where your target audience is most likely to find it and draws back to your own site. You can also re-purpose your content for multiple platforms and uses.

5) Evaluate and Re-evaluate

Use content analytics to evaluate how well your content is being received. I like the WordPress Plugin Delightful Downloads to track how much my content is being downloaded and Google Analytics to see how my interaction is occurring on the site. Pay attention to trends around your content to see if there are any improvements or modifications you can make to produce even more value from your pieces.

What is your content strategy?

Are you just producing with no direction? What value is your content providing? If you don’t know, it’s time to create your own content strategy.